Nuclear reactor shut down

A nuclear reactor has been shut down for the next seven days after an unexpected outage.

The number 7 660-megawatt reactor at the Heysham 2 site, near Morecambe, was taken offline by EDF Energy at 1:48pm today.

The energy company told the BBC that the reactor was “safely shut down” because of “operational requirements”.

The cause of the outage has not been discovered and EDF confirmed that an investigation has been launched.

This is not the first time a reactor has had to be shut down at the power station.

Back in January a fault at the Heysham 1 site led to one of the reactors being closed down. A reactor was also closed last August after a routine inspection discovered a fault and another reactor at the same site was closed in May 2013 when smoke was spotted.